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vmware player, which is still lowercase-free (despite frequent reports to the contrary.)

Not for use in a business or nonprofit organization, according to the answer to the question "Can I still use VMware Workstation Player for free?" on VMware Workstation Player's landing page. The price for one commercial seat (as might be used by a self-employed person) is $150, which is greater than zero but less than the $5000 price of the minimum 100 seats of VirtualBox.

VMWare Player has been free for personal non-commercial use for several years already.

Hyperthreading v. hypervisors is a really difficult and long topic to talk about. There's a lot of information and performance comparisons on the net and in the end it boils down to the type of work that you're doing.

https://medium.com/data-design...
https://medium.com/data-design...
https://medium.com/data-design...
https://www.phoronix.com/scan....
https://blogs.vmware.com/apps/...
https://blog.heroix.com/blog/s...

Also, last time I checked OpenBSD is not widely used as a virtualization platform.

Not hard to find a solution: https://kb.vmware.com/s/articl.... I searched all of 3 seconds. Any other bullshit examples?

• You can't rearrange things if the original order wasn't optimal (e.g. sorting phone numbers by area code).
• You can't delete info which becomes obsolete.
• After a few years you have a large pile of notebooks, and it can be a pain trying to remember which notebook contains the info you know you wrote down. The only way you can search through them is chronological.

The Palm Pilot was a good substitute for certain info like phone numbers and addresses. But it didn't have the flexibility nor the capacity for the massive number of notes I generated. Before the Palm Pilot, I used an HP 200 LX (basically a palmtop version of the original IBM PC). When I ran across OneNote, it was the perfect solution for all my note-taking.

If you have exceptionally good memory (mine is good, but it's good enough that I know when I've forgotten stuff), or don't mind doing things again if you can't remember (I hate repeating work that I've already done), then you probably won't care about it. But if you like to keep details of everything you've done for future reference, almost like a diary, it's indispensable. It's a good central place where I can write nearly anything down, and be able to rearrange, delete, and search the contents quickly and easily.

Flipping through a few pages of my OneNote notebook, I have things like the exact sequence of commands needed to manually map one of my raw drives to a virtual one on my ESXi server, my phone's IMEI (which has long since rubbed off the back) and MSL code to unlock it, list of static IP addresses I've given devices on my LAN, GPS coordinates for ocean fishing spots (so they're not stuck on my chartplotter), how to modify the Windows registry so focus follows the mouse like in X Window, hardware specs for my custom-built server so I don't have to open it or go digging through old receipts to find model numbers, all the info (contacts, addresses, rentals, airport schedules, price comparisons, travel schedules, etc) for the eclipse trip I planned in 2017 for friends and family, a list of charitable donations I've made for the year (for tax purposes), and on and on. All there in one place, semi-organized, and easily modifiable and searchable.

hahaha, and VMWare has now reverted ALL the SPECTRE patches

https://kb.vmware.com/s/articl...

"ESXi was already patched last fall"....BWAHAHAHA you are really a naive shill aren't you?

VMWare has already issued patches to isolate any infection

The VMWare "patches" are little more than the same patches that everyone else is rolling out, and requires the same microcode update. That same update that VMware has pulled just like the rest of the industry has.

But go ahead, crash the delicately balanced ecosystem encompassing everything evolved over the last 40 years or so so that you can be "secure" (while phishers, etc wreak havoc through regular, working methods).

There's different risk profiles and different attack vectors for different systems. They all should be addressed as needed. Oh and for making that statement: You're a complete moron.

Wrong, patches only released January 9 for meltdown and spectre, and it remains to be seen if all possibilities of spectre attack are even addressed

https://www.vmware.com/securit...

VMware pulled some of their patches

Note: ESXi patches associated with VMSA-2018-0004 have been pulled down from the online and offline portal.

...

For ESXi hosts that have not yet applied one of the following patches ESXi650-201801402-BG, ESXi600-201801402-BG, or ESXi550-201801401-BG, VMware recommends not doing so at this time. It is recommended to apply the patches listed in VMSA-2018-0002 instead.

...

For servers using the Intel Haswell and Broadwell processors (see Table 1 for the specific list of affected VMware vSphere supported Intel Haswell and Broadwell processors) that have applied ESXi650-201801402-BG, ESXi600-201801402-BG, or ESXi550-201801401-BG VMware recommends the following:

...

VMware is working closely with Intel and the industry to come to a quick resolution of this Intel microcode issue and provide an update to our customers as soon as possible.

Oops!

reference

MS should provide a patch that loads the microcode on OS boot to cover all devices that may be unsupported but still compatible with Windows, as they have in the past like here: https://support.microsoft.com/...

If for some reason they are late in doing so, load the microcode yourself with this: https://labs.vmware.com/flings...

Qt, GTK, SDL, and other libraries are ported to Windows.

But building and testing a Windows application built with one of these libraries still requires the program's maintainer to have a valid Windows license for the environment on which to run the tests. Technically, the building part doesn't, as GCC can be built on GNU/Linux as a cross-compiler to target Windows, but testing still does. And no, the OEM license that came with the Windows PC that you bought, wiped, and Linuxed doesn't count, as OEM Windows is licensed to run only on metal, not in a virtual machine.

Well, I was just pointing it out because it's not well advertised. VirtualBox works very well for my needs, but I saw you do USB development, so I really can't compare. There should be VMWare for Linux, though. I don't really use VMWare, but their tools are really good. I used VMware vCenter Converter to convert an existing installation to a vmdk and put it into VirtualBox. Worked like a charm.

VMware has shipped with hypervisor-level memory deduplication off by default since 2014, precisely because of this style of attack.

Being secure against this sort of attack has been the norm for years now.

You're talking theory, but the reality is that BIOS/UEFI updates aren't made very often (especially on consumer desktops). Hence OSes have their own microcode update mechanisms. MSFT rarely updates the Windows OS microcode (only for big issues) hence there can be a need for other ways to update like this driver.

You don't know whay a proper hypervisor is, then, so allow me to explain. A proper hypervisor is, itself , the host OS. It occupies a small bit of RAM and a few CPU cycles, allowing for most hardware to be directly accessed by the guest OSes, though certain things (video and networking for instance) are often virtualized when there are more guests needing access to the hardware than there is physical hardware. That is to say, a proper hypervisorballows you to literally run multiple OSes on the same physical machine, each with its own dedicated hardware if you happen to have it available. You can't utilize dedicated, non-virtualized graphics and networking in this way on a Mac, though, because you can't install multiple graphics or network cards in one.

An example of a proper hypervisor is VMWare ESXi, which is its own OS and does not run on OS X (it would actually be the other way around). While OS X can run on ESXi, it can only do so on Apple hardware, which, as mentioned above, can't utilize the most useful features.

iOS runs UNIX and you have absolutely no control over it.

OS X is officially a UNIX but as of the latest version you can't even use root to replace some of Apple's software with newer versions.

If you're referring to System Integrity Protection, then, if you want to replace some of Apple's software, feel free to disable System Integrity Protection. A bit of a painful process, but the setting persists, so you only have to do it once, unless you want to turn it back on once you're done and then turn it off again when you want to change one of the protected files.

(Pro tip for people running OS X under VMware Fusion: if you're going to be doing this, you'll probably want to increase the boot delay on your VM so that you have enough time to do the "boot to Recovery OS" dance. The Parallels folk don't require anything like that, apparently, but I haven't tried it with Parallels.)

Look at this thread:
https://communities.vmware.com...

The good parts:

In this isolated environment, Oracle pretend to license every socket to any host connected to the V7000, regardless of the cluster that are connected the host.

and a reply:

yes I have heard this from several people and it was also the topic of a workshop on the annual german oracle uer group meeting. For your environment, oracle was even kind. As you can vMotion VMs even without shared storage since vSphere 5.1, they tend to say you have to license every host in your vCenter for their software, even if they are not connected to the same storage. When vMotion will be available across different vCenters I expect Oracle to even says you have to license every single ESXi host you have world wide in any datacenter

This is the same exact situation I've described.

We were in the process of reviewing the ELA and the Oracle reps gave us that info. They said it's even worse when it's iSCSI but as many people in the rooms were already shitting their pants or punching the walls we didn't discuss further the iSCSI part of the license (which didn't apply to us anyways).

If you're happy with the way your Windows is set up, instead of installing form scratch in a VM, you can use VMWare's vCenter Converter to virtualise it. Install your preferred Linux distro, install VirtualBox and point it to the vCenter-created virtual hard drive and Bob's your uncle.

Installing from scratch would be cleaner, but if you're happy with what you've got this can save you the hours you would otherwise waste installing, updating, updating, updating, updating, etc.

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmwa...

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservi...

> I bought a half dozen of the RPi kits when they came out and I've only unboxed one. I played with it and did exactly nothing of value with it. I keep meaning to pick it up and learn more but I can't actually think of anything I'd want to do with it or with the rest of them.

--There are *lots* of things you can do with a PI that are pretty neat. If you already know Linux, you can just leave the board up and running 24/7 with minimal power expense.

--I chose to implement my Squid server on a Cubieboard instead, but you can do basically the same with a PI.

--Some links to get you started:

https://communities.vmware.com...
^^ This is a complete drop-in Squid Vmware appliance that I created. Once you get a Linux distribution installed on the PI, you can install the Squid package on it as well and copy the config files over.

http://www.squid-cache.org/

http://www.instructables.com/i...

http://www.pcworld.com/article...

http://www.itpro.co.uk/mobile/...

http://www.digitaltrends.com/c...

--Your local LUG (Linux User Group) should be able to help you get started and maybe give you some ideas on what to do with the board(s). HTH

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

--I recommend you designate a Saturday (or whatever day is $convenient) and resolve to do something with at least one Pi board. Feel free to email me with progress reports ;-)

Perhaps VMware vSphere 4 is enterprisey enough for you? Perhaps you should calm down and stop being a douche.

Containers do have much less RAM overhead compared to the most advanced VM solutions out now and name calling doesn't win that argument.

I was looking at this recently; this should turn off and block much of it:

Turn off CEIP, Uninstall updates, and then hide telemetry updates to prevent re-install:
http://www.pcworld.com/article...
Note: my "CEIP" setting was opted-out, but I still received two of those updates. So the "you don't get these updates if you're not in CEIP" assertions are incorrect, at least in my case.

Turn off CEIP reporting services:
https://pubs.vmware.com/view-5...

I kept having that "Update Windows 10" (GWXUX) service crash, so I turned it off using the registry update at the end of this article, leaving myself the opportunity to reverse the process and upgrade later if desired:
http://www.howtogeek.com/21885...

If you want to block windows 10 telemetry using a quick and dirty private DNS server, along with ad and malware blocking, install dnsmasq on a computer (maybe a raspberry pi if you're going for cheap, I'm using a VM on a test bed computer in bridged mode for this experiment):
https://www.linux.com/learn/tu... ...and block using an amalgamation of HOSTS files from here:
https://github.com/StevenBlack...

It's a python script that gets a few HOSTS files on the net and de-duplicates them into a mega crap-blocker list. The resulting list includes tens of thousands of DNS lookups that will be blocked at the perimeter of your network, so it could cause some web pages or software to break they depend on sites blocked by these lists. You can prepare you own windows 10 specific HOSTS file using entries from http://someonewhocares.org/hos... and those listed in articles about this issue if you feel paranoid. Windows can side-step your hosts file, but not your DNS server!

Stating the obvious: you'll want to leave the quick and dirty DNS behind your firewall/router, not expose it to the Internet.

Read the comments from VMware here:
http://blogs.vmware.com/vspher...
especially comments from Dennis Lu.

Essentially, it was either deliver HTML5 code (leaving webUI in v5.1 state) or progress web UI until it was 'good', then move to HTML5. They chose the latter.

I'm not sure why they didn't do a parallel development. Maybe they have & it's not releasable yet, but that's the state we're in now.

It is easy enough to run Linux from a Live (Bootable) media or to install a VM based Linux box. You do not need a dedicated box.

https://www.kali.org/

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

https://www.vmware.com/products/player

http://apcmag.com/pirated_wind...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...
http://store.vmware.com/store/...

New laptop, an SSD, and VMWare Workstation, all for less than $1,000. The key here is TinyXP, the custom-built flavor of XP circulating the internet that uses 50MB of RAM after installation. Boot time for all of them would certainly be measurable if not staggered, but 16VMs on a laptop that's got 16GB of RAM, running stripped down XP installations that have one job...I think it's doable.

I still think the Layer 3 Switch option is a better one. Where that might be a bit more of a problem would be with regards to whether the update software is capable of handling the possibility of seeing more than one device available to update at the same time. Even though it's possible with networking tricks to get all the pumps addressable at the same time, there's no guarantee that the software is built for that use case. For that matter, it's entirely possible that the software will throw up if multiple instances are attempted to run concurrently. Thus, the 16-VM route may be necessary for that reason, regardless of whether or not a layer 3 switch could solve the networking problem.

Long before Docker, there was Thinstall/Thinapp

It's particularly interesting since VMware seems, in many respects, friendly to open source. They distribute a bunch of open source in their products and extensively document this, they partner with open source projects like Docker and OpenStack, and they're on GitHub. The sticking point here seems to be that they have kernel-level code that they think isn't covered by the GPL and Hellwig and the Conservancy do.

you don't have the option of dual-booting AND, at the same time, running the SAME foreign OS install in VMWare

Hrm, VMware Workstation 5.5 is getting a bit long in the tooth, but...

VMware Workstation 5.5 Configuring a Dual-Boot Computer for Use with a Virtual Machine

Many users install VMware Workstation on a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer so they can run one or more of the existing operating systems in a virtual machine. If you are doing this, you may want to use the existing installation of an operating system rather than reinstall it in a virtual machine.

[...]

To support such installations, VMware Workstation makes it possible for you to use a physical IDE disk or partition, also known as a physical disk, inside a virtual machine.

You are incorrect. QED.

I wonder if FreeDOS can run in virtual machine. Oh Google...

Yes, you can run FreeDOS in a VM! I usually recommend installing FreeDOS in a VM, especially if you don't plan to commit that computer to FreeDOS full-time. For Windows, I think most people prefer QEMU or VMWare or VirtualPC. On my Linux laptop, I run DOSemu.

http://partnerweb.vmware.com/G...

I wonder what his current backup solution is.....

--Running behind a proxy can help. Try the Squid VM to start with:

https://communities.vmware.com...

VMware's new cloud is signing BAAs (Business Associate Agreements) to ensure HIPPA regulation compliance with it's customers.
press release

How HIPPA works

Thanks for your comments, I really appreciate them. Your mention of experiments was spot on with the use cases I'm trying to learn about. I've worked with many scientists who use commercial software packages for biomedical research where their experimental results may be archived for 10+ years before being reanalyzed. I recently helped a colleague pull a Windows 2000 server out of storage to rerun an experiment. We got it going after some difficulty and that got me thinking about virtualizing the harddrive, which then lead me to wonder about the portability of virtualized machines between hardware hosts (including cloud providers) and the resulting reproducibility issues that could occur. I then read through several interesting papers showing variability of floating point math in commercial hypervisors, which lead to my posting on Slashdot. Thanks again. Some interesting links: http://faculty.cs.gwu.edu/~timwood/papers/im2013_tech.pdf http://www.vmware.com/pdf/hypervisor_performance.pdf http://www.cc.iitd.ernet.in/misc/cloud/XenExpress.pdf

Cause the game detects it runs in a VM?

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/273480?start=0&tstart=0

Then you don't have a very big business.

See list of supported OSes on VMware:
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=software

versus list of supported OSes on HyperV:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/schadinio/archive/2012/06/26/windows-server-2012-hyper-v-list-of-supported-client-os.aspx

Good luck trying to support your business support customers on Mac or older versions of linux or lots of flavors of linux when you use HyperV. Or Windows 95/98/2000.

HORIZON WORKSPACE!
https://www.vmware.com/products/desktop_virtualization/horizon-workspace/overview.html

Bullshit. Even ESX/ESXi can work just fine without VT-d. The only thing you lose is I/O pass-through. Cut out the hyperbole. The fact that you can explicitly disable VT-d in VMWare's settings disproves your ridiculous claims.

VMWare just called: Something about you being wrong. I did make a typo confusing VT-d with VT-x, but the point is that these features being disabled will make those CPUs less desireable for virtualization, if not outright impossible. Which is what Intel is aiming for; Market segmentation means you can charge more for certain features... and virtualization has become all the rage in data centers, so why not have them pay through the nose... and just burn a few fuses out for the unwashed masses and charge a lot less to them?

Nevermind that some of those "unwashed masses" are professionals who want to work on this technology outside of work... or are enthusiasts. If they don't have the cash, fuck 'em, right?

Go look up the spec sheets for Sandy CPUs. Or better yet Google 3570K and VT-d. Surprise!

Sorry, my bad. I confused VT-d with VT-x. Yes, you're correct -- it won't run an ESX server, but I use Workstation, so it's been fine for me. That sucks though -- I know a lot of people who build dedicated lab machines on a rack; I don't have the funds to lay out on something that complex, nor the space where I live right now, but I can see how that would screw you over... especially when VMWare's hardware requirements white sheet doesn't specifically list it either. :(

This kind of cpu fragmentation I think is an attempt to create new markets where they can charge more, and it's frustrating because there's no technological reason for it. Where's government regulation when you really need it?

So, I co-wrote this book on virtual security and am a former VMware Cloud Solutions Architect. And I'll preface this advice by saying that, if you want to talk more in depth, feel free to ping me. First initial, last name at gmail will work. (The email I have attached to slashdot I glance at occasionally, but it gets almost purely spam and so I'd likely miss anything.)

From my perspective, the first question is which hypervisor to use:
- VMware is mature, you can get a free license for the base hypervisor (which is quite feature rich; this is no trial product) for up to 32GB per physical box, is widely used. If VMware remains as relevant in the future as it is now, it's actually a very solid skillset to have.
- If you have physical hosts over 32GB, VMware ceases to be free
- Some features require more advanced VMware stuff, including vCenter server, which isn't free - for example, VMware's live vm migration feature (vMotion)
- VMware is almost entirely closed on the internals; hypervisor is closed source (other than a not-useful-for-your-purposes "open source" bundle that contains their modified GPL code only); they have a bunch of APIs for internal functions (ie, tracking changed blocks on the virtual iscsi devices, for example), but those are generally restricted to partners; so if your students want to actually hack the virtualization layer, they can't. Then again, letting them do so wouldn't really be safe.
- On the other hand, VMware layers do have nice APIs that are reasonably accessible for doing non-internals stuff; things like powering VMs on and off, changing their allocated RAM and cpus, etc
- VMware has a nice set of tools, including CLI tools, which work well even with the free versions, that can allow you to move virtual machines in and out of specific hypervisors (not while the VMs are powered on), and into and out of VMware's desktop products (Workstation for Windows and Linux, Fusion for Mac). (google ovftool for the cross-platform CLI tool, for example; it can import/export to/from ESX, vCenter Server, Workstation, Fusion, and vCloud instances)
- VMware has a nice set of tools for snapshots and backups, even on the base hypervisor; for example, I have a personal ESX box at a provider and I use this tool to back up the VMs back and forth, which can be done from outside the OS without powering the VM down, and it's free.
- I found using some things I'd think of as mandatory for a lab environment (ie, thin provisioning) were just built-in on the VMware side and required a fair bit of extra work and added extra wrinkles

The virtual networking on VMware is dramatically more mature from my experience; my experience with Xen & KVM is now dated (it's been 2 years since I was in the thick of writing that book, which was the last time I was really in the thick of exploring the open-source hypervisor networking bits). I found that depending on the version of the hypervisor OS, which hypervisor, which kernel, which guest, etc, you could fall into all sorts of traps. I had some examples in the book where I showed, for example, generating and applying ebtables configurations to the host OS (the Xen Linux hypervisor OS) to block forged frames from coming across the bridge from one of the guest Linuxes, for example.

Compare that to the VMware side, you could in theory wire up everything to dumb hubs, even, and enforce network separation at the hypervisor layer with VLAN tags applied to the portgroups where you attach VMs. (Warning: not suggesting you blindly do that; but VLAN enforcement on the VMware side is fairly rigid if configured in a good way.)

My own book is a fun read for some of these concerns, although Haletky's book is probably the canonical work on the subject. (Although it is -slightly- dated from bein

Cisco's UCS client is a bare-bones implementation that doesn't seek to be everything to everybody. That's what their API is for.

VMWare's vCenter client is also a bare-bones implementation that doesn't seek to be everything to everybody. That's what their API is for.

Zenoss doesn't try to be everything to everybody, either. That's what their API is for.

You see a pattern here, dipshit? If you're too dumb to know how to take advantage of a piece of software's API, then the existence of these "web 2.0" versions that are basic & bare-bones lets you get *something* done. If you were half as smart and experienced as you're trying to make yourself sound, you'd simply be writing some python or other code that would fit your needs exactly by gluing together these API components in the way you need.

But keep on loading a web interface over a high-latency VPN link - I'll be running "moveServers.py" from Bash, and heading off to the pub while you keep clicking and waiting for screen refreshes, chief. Your post reads like you're a windows admin who's really upset that he can't just keep on clicking in a homegrown Excel Spreadsheet with 5 million lines of VBA embedded in it to manage his server farms, and when presented with the tools to roll your own automation, throw your hands up and say "But I don't want to have to do any work, I just want to click the pretty buttons!"

Can't have it both ways. If you have as much hate for the web 2.0 interfaces as you want us to believe, then you should already be rolling your own management scripts to replace clicking.

From VMWare documentation

The first three bytes of the MAC address that is generated for each virtual network adapter consists of the OUI. The MAC address-generation algorithm produces the other three bytes.

Unless you manually pick a MAC address, youre going to end up with a MAC that identifies as VMWare, every time.

Grats on being both a jerk, AND wrong; its really a potent combination.

So is arguably worse than existing Android/iOS tablets on price and hardware.

Which might clue you in that perhaps Surface RT is not meant for the enterprise. Which is why Microsoft offers

1. Powerful yet expensive core i5 powered tables capable of ultrabook type computing, with all the enterprise benefits of Windows (Surface Pro)
2. Light and cheap atom powered tablets that can at least run legacy x86 applications but have the battery life of ARM powered devices (Latitude 10)

This is what enterprise is now interested in. That's why 32% of mobile tech workers want a Windows tablet as their next device, compared to 26% for iPad and a mere 12% for Android. (Source: http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/Forrester_2013_Mobile_Workforce_Adoption_Trends_Feb2013.pdf)

Windows RT is microsoft's answer to the iPad home market. It's lacking apps now, yeah that's a given as Metro is a new platform. But there's nothing specifically that Windows RT cannot do that iPad can. Windows RT outshines iPad in several areas like being able to use two apps side by side, being able to use multiple accounts, having an open filesystem for using USB drives, and being able to view flash content like Hulu. It's probably not on equal footing yet, mostly because of the apps, but that will grow in time. But don't confuse Surface RT as Microsoft's answer to the iPad in the enterprise. Windows 8 tablets are for that purpose.

Please make up your mind!

First you say:

Oh, you want it free? OK, here you go: http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere-hypervisor/overview.html All that ranting, and all you needed to do was ask.

Then

I guess you get what you pay for.

Later

Now to play the next counter argument, one of the org's I support is small, with an appropriately sized IT budget (small) They are very well served by Hyper-V, and the low cost is a major factor.

Which way is it? Free is good or you just get what you paid for? Hiper-V is as good as WMWare?

How about sticking to your guns and not wandering all over the place trying, at the same time, arguing for and against your own opinions?

....Unless Vmware discounts their licenses to nearly free, their high volume customers aren't likely to stick with them, ......

Oh, you want it free?

OK, here you go: http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere-hypervisor/overview.html

All that ranting, and all you needed to do was ask.

That's the hypervisor only, not any of the features that make VMware attractive to the Enterprise. That's kind of like someone complaining that Cisco hardware is expensive, and you offer a free supervisor engine that won't really do anything until you surround it with a $40,000 switch chassis.

http://www.vmware.com/products/datacenter-virtualization/vsphere/compare-kits.html

The free version gives Vmware workstation a run for its money(if you are OK with running your day-to-day OS on top of it, rather than it on top of your OS, or you have a second machine); but it is the toy seats by the standards of what they aren't exactly giving away.

....Unless Vmware discounts their licenses to nearly free, their high volume customers aren't likely to stick with them, ......

Oh, you want it free?

OK, here you go: http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere-hypervisor/overview.html

All that ranting, and all you needed to do was ask.

You can - kinda. It'll require a real computer to run the software though.

Are you also entitled to free internet, free Office software, free MS SQL CALs, free vSphere enterprise licenses?

Yes, yes, no, somewhat.
(although "free" is not made explicit in the first link, "basic human right" seems to hint in that direction)

You're going to have to catch me up why Hyper-V and Visualization matter in your sentence. If your V-Server depends on AD which is on the V-Server you're going to have an issue.

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/Virtualizing_Windows_Active_Directory.pdf

People have already setup Samba4 and W2K8 ADs working together

http://admingeeks.blogspot.com/2011/05/samba-4-domain-controller-part-4-adding.html

The other issues are potentially a problem as there are thousands of different AD configurations out there, and all of them have not been tested.